Meet Dr. Mike Snyder, Chair of the Genetics Department at Stanford University and member of ME/CFS Collaborative Research Team

Happy #OMFScienceWednesday! Today we get to know the research of Dr. Mike Snyder, Chair of the Genetics Department at Stanford University, whose team is part of the ME/CFS Collaborative Research Center at Stanford that we are funding.

Dr. Snyder is a pioneer in the area of using a variety of technologies to monitor the health of individuals over time, which he calls ‘personal omics profiling.’ His research, which he describes in the video below, asks the question of what it means to be healthy, and how we transition from health to disease. Also, how do individuals vary in this transition, and in their responses to stressors like viruses? What role do genetics play in this? These questions are especially important for a disease like ME/CFS, where there is so much individual variation and viruses are playing a role that we still do not understand.

Dr. Snyder himself was the first volunteer for this research. He has donated samples over several years that have been used to generate billions of data points as he went through more than 10 infections, including Lyme disease. His molecular data correctly predicted that he would develop diabetes, which was triggered by a viral infection. In addition to molecular profiles using genomics technologies, Dr. Snyder also uses wearable devices in his research to monitor sleep, oxygen, heart rate, and more. His team has expanded this research to individuals with diabetes and many other diseases, now including ME/CFS.

Dr. Snyder’s personal omics profiling approaches will be applied in one of the projects we are funding at the ME/CFS Collaborative Research Center at Stanford. Read more about the Center’s plans and donate to support their work here: /collaborative-research-center-stanford/

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